1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to software defined radio communications, particularly software communications architectures.
2. Discussion of the Known Art
As part of a software defined radio standard referred to as Software Communications Architecture (SCA), there is a programming module called the modem hardware abstraction layer or MHAL. For example, the MHAL allows waveform software in a SCA conforming radio to be isolated from specifics of the radio hardware that produces the waveform. That is, the hardware is “abstracted” to provide the software a simple interface (service) it can leverage to communicate with the hardware. This allows the same application to run on any radio that is compliant with the SCA (i.e., the application is said to be “portable”) even though the underlying hardware may differ from one radio to another. Thus, software used to generate a particular waveform may be imported into several different sets of radio hardware.
The concept for the SCA originated from the Joint Tactical Radio System or JTRS. See, SCA Software Communications Architecture, on the Web at radio-electronics.com/info/rf-technology-design/sdr/software-communications-architecture-sca.php. Usually, the MHAL must be custom coded and tested for each different set of radio hardware on which it will reside, however.
Commonality does exist among various implementations of MHALs. It would therefore be desirable to separate such platform independent or “core” functionality from the platform specific, so that the core functionality need only be developed and tested once. Such a core module could then be reused, and efforts to implement and test platform specific portions of the MHAL from one set of radio hardware to another would be minimized. To be useful, however, the core functionality must be flexible and capable of meeting the needs of any specific radio application.